


Almost Feelings

by XtaticPearl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bitterness, Everybody Has Family Issues, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Late Night Conversations, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-10 22:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12921924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: Steve never knew what life he could have lived or how the present would have been different if he had died in the ice. He didn't think he would ever handle thinking about either without losing control. Tony doesn't want to think about how his life could have been different if Steve had never crashed or hadn't come back. He didn't think he could handle giving that much control to missed chances. It was probably ironic that such men should find each other. It was definitely amusing that they such men should love each other.





	Almost Feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neverever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/gifts).



> Prompt: Tony and Steve hash out Tony’s daddy issues and why Steve reminds Tony of Howard – with Tony coming to grips with his past and finding that he’s in love with Steve; Tony reminds Steve of everything he loved about Peggy and he’s really in love with Tony. Doesn’t matter which part of canon this story is placed.
> 
>  
> 
> Note: The canon diverges post IM3 and CATWS, so there is no AoU here. I hope you all enjoy this fic and have fun! I DEFINITELy hope that @neverever likes this fic <3

**Steve**

"Coffee?"

Steve didn't put his pen down but his hand paused and he looked up at Tony who was eyeing the table with mild curiosity. It had been three months since Steve had moved into the Tower and one month since he had told Tony about DC's specifics. About the implications that had come from there as well. There had been loud arguments at first, a couple of times even leading to them suiting up. There had been anger and need for retribution and defensiveness, not just from one side. But then there had been avoidance outside missions, sharp looks that felt painful even as they threw them out. And then there was silence. Deafening, all-consuming silence that existed when there was no  _ need _ for speech or discussion. 

A jumbled four weeks of all that later this was how Tony approached him, in a dress shirt and trousers at nearly midnight, with the offer of coffee. 

Steve let his pen twist between his fingers and nodded once before getting back to his reports because SHIELD had fallen but they were still dealing with the PR of that. Not to mention, he had his own headaches with the military to deal with, and later -

Later he needed to go over Sam's latest bunch of reports on Bucky's tracking. 

He didn't know if he was in any way or form ready to deal with Tony's attempt at breaking their impasse, he hoped it was that, right now but Steve had fought enough battles to know when to resist and when to try. 

He was also mildly curious as he always seemed to be when he got an opportunity to see another puzzle piece of the enigma that Tony Stark was. 

The scratch of the fountain pen against the paper felt routine and Steve paused to read his previous sentence before forming the next one. He could hear Tony working around the kitchen, having a quiet conversation with JARVIS about some exoskeleton design. 

"Captain Rogers," JARVIS called out and Steve let his eyes flick up to the nearest camera, "Sir would like to know if you'll have milk in your coffee."

Steve looked up then and shot a look in the kitchen's direction where Tony held up a  _ jug _ of milk and raised an eyebrow. Steve considered answering JARVIS but then nodded at Tony. Tony didn’t reply but shrugged and went on to add milk to Steve’s coffee. Steve turned back to his reports and worked through the latest data about the DC enquiry.

“Natasha’s not open for the next hearing, so it’s gonna be you and me,” Tony said when he came back with two mugs and Steve reached up to take his but Tony waited and eyed the papers, letting Steve move them aside into a folder before he placed Steve’s mug in front of him. Sitting on the other available chair, he took a sip of his espresso and gestured at the folder using his mug. “You get anywhere on Stern’s points?”

“Apart from him being Hydra and not a valid party to be discussing the points he raised?” Steve shrugged and blew on his coffee before raising the mug to his lips, “Not really. They aren’t any different from Senator Hayes’, really.”

Steve took a sip of the coffee and paused as he wondered how Tony had gotten his  _ sugar _ right when he hadn’t known if Steve took milk with his coffee. It was often a gamble, trying to hit the mark as to understanding  _ what _ Tony knew and what he was bluffing about. Even when he had first moved in, Steve had been surprised by Tony knowing all about his shield but much less about the serum. 

He quite preferred it that way but the point still stood. 

“Probably helps that he’s in prison now,” Tony said and Steve noted as the man absently drew patterns on the table, his gaze still on the folder but with a thoughtful, faraway look to it. Right, Stern, Steve remembered. “I finally get to pull an I-told-you-so with the Congress about the guy. He was an assclown even back then.”

‘Back then’ was just three years ago but Steve couldn’t really argue. For him, ‘back then’ felt like three years ago while it was older than Tony. He took another long swallow of his coffee and put the mug down for a bit. 

“You’re coming along?” he asked, wondering if his voice sounded as skeptical as it felt but Tony looked up at him with a challenging raised brow.

“Problem?” he asked and Steve was torn between pulling a defensive stance or trying to explain his question but Tony continued with a shake of his head, “I need to clarify my role in things anyway.”

Steve frowned but then it struck him and he blinked twice.

“I don’t think they can blame the Project on you or the repulsor tech, Tony.”

“They don’t have to,” Tony shrugged and took a final gulp of his coffee, “I shut down the weapons business for a reason and well, some things do slip up.”

“It wasn’t -”

“Were you the guy who made them or the guy who destroyed them?” Tony cut in sharply with an edgy smile and Steve bristled.

“You got something to say?” he asked tightly but Tony held his gaze for a second before rolling his eyes and leaning back. 

“A lot of things, but for now, your coffee is tipping over,” Tony said lazily and Steve righted it. He looked away from Tony and breathed out, choosing to drink his coffee and get back to work. Maybe it was better to be on an impasse. Maybe they weren’t ready to talk about -

“Dad was there at the Trinity Site when it happened,” Tony said and Steve looked up to see him eyeing the table, a frown on his face as he placed the name in his mind’s pages, “I didn’t know about that till two years ago. Found a picture in his archives.”

It clicked then, the name, and Steve swallowed hard.

“The Manhattan Project,” he said and Tony snorted but nodded.

“Terribly decent code name for the most disastrous legacy, right?” he shrugged and Steve watched him flick at the handle of his mug once, “I knew about his involvement in it, everybody did, but I didn’t know that he was physically there. Actually watched the first test happen. Watched a mushroom cloud of doom rise and - I don’t know what he thought of it.”

Steve had read about it, the secret project that had employed more than 120,000 people but had cost just as many if not more lives. Science had furthered in his absence but sometimes Steve wondered if the cost they paid for it was worth it. He had seen Bruce work tirelessly on his research but Bruce had also attempted to recreate the serum at a high cost. Selvig had wanted to study the Tesseract and - well, Steve heard from Thor sometimes that he was still not completely over it. And then there was Tony, who both claimed to not create weapons while wearing the most advanced one made yet. 

It was always an irony but Steve knew he didn’t have much ground to stand on, considering that he was alive because of an eccentric experiment. Faded words from a Helicarrier sprang to mind and Steve shoved them back resolutely.

“Erskine once said that experiments weren’t good or bad,” Steve said, eyes focused on a spot above Tony’s shoulder, “but their intent and applications were one of the two.”

“Poetic,” Tony commented but Steve couldn’t detect sarcasm in it so he let the pause in conversation stay. 

“I guess,” Tony said after a moment, flippant in attempt but an underlying tone of seriousness to it, “I guess that they lived through regrets but here’s the thing. Dad never spoke about stopping the business. Stopping what he did, because he was always a weapons guy. The legacy stays strong, and well - you can build all the Expos you want but the tag remains.”

“You stopped it when you could,” Steve said, not sure if he was reassuring anyone or simply filling the required slot of replies.

Tony smiled then, an empty shadow of what should have been charming.

“Footage begs to differ though, Cap,” he said and drummed on the table before he got up, swiftly moving with his empty mug, “Don’t worry about Stern and Hayes. I’m sure we’ll wrangle them between my charm and your - whatever it is you olden kids call it.”

He was off before Steve could reply and the soldier wondered if there really was anything to reply to. He didn’t know what had transpired but it felt significant, like the impasse had shifted. 

He swallowed his coffee and went back to work. It only struck him as he was working through Sam’s leads that it was the first time Tony had ever called Howard ‘dad’ in front of him instead of ‘my old man’ or other unending nicknames. 

He breathed out hard and forced his eyes to focus on Tasmania’s coordinates. 

\-------------  
  


It had taken an hour longer than usual for him to reach the nursing home that day and Steve was trying to tamp down his foul mood to the best of his abilities. The delay hadn’t been intentional and certainly no single person’s fault but a botched up team training had led to a heated debate between Hulk and Thor which had led to Clint egging them on which had led to a mini wreckage of the training area. Steve hadn’t been required to stay but he was the team leader and he had been trying hard to shape up this new forming team. 

It hadn’t helped that Tony had refused to take part in the training, going on a business trip urgently, and leaving Steve to deal with a JARVIS controlled suit.  _ Just to give you an idea _ , he had grinned as he left and Steve felt the urge to knock the suit down but had let it pass.

“Good evening, Captain,” Frederick, the receptionist, nodded warmly at him when he entered and pulled out the book for Steve to sign, “Nurse Leanne was almost certain you were caught up in some Avengers business.”

“Is she asleep?” he asked because Peggy got tired sometimes, wearing out easy with medicines and age and a million worries of years crashing down on her finally. Sometimes Steve looked at her and wished he could be that too, be someone who had done their part and given what they could have. 

He hadn’t though. He was still in due. 

“She’s waiting for you,” Frederick replied with a smile and Steve wondered if the guy knew how much deeper that sentence went. 

True to form though, Peggy  _ was _ waiting for him when he entered and Steve smiled at her. She smiled back and for an hour Steve pretended that he still had a chance of being beside the woman he had fallen in love with seven decades ago. 

When the time came for him to leave, he kissed her hand and she squeezed his wrist.

“Howard would have loved this,” she whispered and Steve blinked back any attempts at tears, “He always - I think he never gave up, even after he seemed to have stopped looking. He never gave up on you, Steve. I wish…”

“It’s okay, Peg,” Steve replied and tried to smile but then her gaze went unfocused for a second before she smiled with a confused tinge.

“Steven? Is that you?”

Steve stepped out of the nursing home another hour later with a stillness in his soul, sepia toned memories running through his mind as he looked around at the HD coloured world. 

“Captain Rogers?” someone called from behind and Steve turned to see Frederick jogging towards him, holding a small package in his hand, “Sorry, I didn’t want to miss you.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, just,” the man shook the parcel in his hand and smiled sheepishly at Steve, “I have to deliver this to Mr. Stark from Peggy but - well, usually I drop it off at the Tower when I go home but I’m actually driving to the other side of the city today and I was just wondering if you’d mind giving it to him for me? Since you live there?”

Steve bit back a frown and eyed the small brown package, a stash of documents if anything, and nodded as he took it.

“Is there a specific message I should pass on?”

“Oh, no, it’s okay, he knows,” Frederick laughed, “It’s a usual thing so he’ll be expecting it. Thank you, Captain. And sorry for the trouble.”

Steve smiled and shook his head before the man jogged back into the home. There were a million questions on his mind but Steve put the package in his jacket and left towards the Tower. 

Tony wasn’t home when he came back so Steve left it in the penthouse and asked JARVIS to let him know when he came back. 

He didn’t expect to run into Tony the next morning at the gym. Tony wasn’t even the least morning-friendly person Steve knew and it had always taken a lot of coaxing or argument to get him to come down to the gym before. To see him standing there in an old grey Bruce Lee t-shirt and jeans was strange.

“Tony,” Steve eyed him quickly, cataloguing for any injury, “are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on, why should anything go on?” Tony shrugged stiffly and Steve considered pushing him but let the silence remain pointed till the genius deflated a little, “Fine, so maybe I don’t come here often, but it’s still not that weird. Really.”

“I’ve been here for six months and the only time you voluntarily come down to the gym is if you have a bet with someone,” Steve pointed out and Tony narrowed his eyes at him but laughed a little, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, fair, okay,” he paused and breathed out, again tensed. Steve debated asking him about it but decided to let him gather his thoughts and went ahead with his warm-up. Tony eyed him appraisingly for a couple of minutes before he shucked off his shoes and joined Steve with a defiant look. 

“Focus,” he said with a sniff when Steve side-eyed him but Steve snorted and kept at his routine.

Sparring was never supposed to be cautious but Steve had not really gotten a hold of sparring with  _ Tony _ as such. There was always a hesitation, an analysis and deconstruction involved, like they were unlearning each other. While he could throw Natasha down without pause, with Tony he always had a hummingbird beat in his chest, wondering if he was pushing too hard or if Tony thought he was. 

“Hey, thanks by the way,” Tony said when they had finished and Steve looked up at him from the bench he was sitting on, watching Tony take a swig of water from his bottle.

“We could always try more,” Steve said and Tony chuckled but shook his head.

“Yeah, not for this,” Tony gestured at the mat behind them, “but for yesterday.”

Steve got it and nodded, trying to figure out a way to ask without letting it encroach hurtful areas. 

“What?” Tony asked and Steve frowned at him in confusion, “You have a look on you, like you want to ask something. What’s up?”

“How long have you known Peggy?” he asked and cleared his throat when Tony’s expression shuttered, “Frederick said it was a usual affair so I thought that you might have - you know her, right?”

“I don’t really know,” Tony said a bit shortly and Steve exhaled sharp but then Tony eyed his bottle, something going softer in the lines of his shoulder, “I guess an appropriate time would be all my life but well - if you’re asking me how long I’ve really  _ known _ her then, it’s probably about 3 ½ years now.”

“How does that work?” Steve asked, more to himself than Tony but the genius shrugged and stayed silent for a minute.

“The first time I met her I thought dad was cheating on mom with her,” he confessed and Steve’s head snapped up with sheer anger, a bite on the tip of his tongue but then Tony caught his eyes and shrugged, “What? You wanted to know.”

“She would never,” he bit out and Tony eyed him for a minute before he capped his bottle.

“It’s not her I was blaming,” he said and Steve still felt the anger course through him but the meaning seemed clearer. Howard. Of course, he meant Howard.

“She would never,” he repeated but with a calmer edge this time and Tony nodded. 

“I realized that later, but at that time I was more concerned about why my father was more interested in talking to her for hours rather than spend two minutes with my mother,” he said casually and Steve didn’t want to know this picture being painted but maybe he needed to. Maybe history wasn’t always what he wanted it to be and he kept quiet as Tony spoke. “I was angry and bitter and downright jealous of a woman I didn’t know well enough because - it wasn’t a pretty summer, really.”

Steve wanted to deny that Howard would have been such a faithless man to the woman he had married, and maybe he hadn’t been faithless but hadn’t been faithful in all his vows, or maybe he had tried but not succeeded in everything. It was so much easier to blame the dead, but Steve had nothing more than ghosts to call his own, even if he shared this one with someone who had grown up with an alive man instead. 

He wanted to hold the image of the cocksure, brash but brilliant man he knew from his time and maybe he would, maybe that would remain but Tony’s memories of Howard weren’t false. They were additions and details into the aging of a memory; something Steve had come to learn was not in his right to deny. 

“How did you clear the misconception?” he asked instead of the pressing questions and prodding inferences. Tony’s eyes crinkled and his hand hooked into his pant pockets.

“I met her husband,” he grinned at Steve and Steve remembered the man from the pictures on Peggy’s bedside table, “And she looked at him like…”

“Like?” Steve prompted, getting a shrug from Tony.

“Like I’d seen Howard look at mom in old pictures,” he said and then paused before nodding to himself, “well, sometimes even then, when he had his good days.”

Steve wasn’t the best at offering comfort in situations he didn’t really know about and this one was trickier, considering how his own past entangled with Tony’s.

“I’m glad he got to live with her though,” he said in the end and Tony raised an eyebrow before raising a toast to Steve, even as he heard Tony’s unspoken  _ died with her too _ . It wasn’t something that needed to be said out loud sometimes and it still weighed on them. 

“They were letters,” Tony said and Steve tilted his head a bit, “the package you delivered yesterday? Peggy writes letters or notes sometimes. Or journal pages. Things she remembered and wanted to talk about. It’s a reconnection thing I think.”

Steve felt a shaky inhale lodge in his chest at that but nodded. He didn’t tell Tony that it was nice knowing that he read them, because he knew that Tony did, he always did even when he didn’t make a show of it. He didn’t tell him that it was good to think that she had someone who was learning her too, just as Steve was learning everyone else. 

It was a soothing ache and Steve nodded at Tony when he left the gym. 

When he saw a single photograph with Peggy’s handwriting behind it, placed on his coffee table the next evening, Steve smiled down at a grinning Peggy as she posed with her husband. The writing read that Howard had taken the picture and Steve wondered if Tony knew what he was giving Steve.

He still kept it safe though, and learnt to throw Tony better during the steadily affirming sparring sessions. 

\----------

Steve knew that looking for Tony in the workshop was an expected route to go but this was a different scenario. The workshop was for bad days and stressful days. For days when Tony could try to fix things or find things that would fix it for him. It was a punishment and a haven of safety. It was Tony’s world and he dealt with his demons there. 

Today, though, was not about his demons. 

“JARVIS?” he called out and shifted the bag of bagels in his hand. Sam had already stolen the donut box and Steve was sure that it would be empty by the time he came back, but the bagels were safe in his hand.

“Yes, Steve?” the AI asked, a year and more of changing addresses finally down to just the name.

“The roof, please,” he commanded and entered the elevator when the door opened.

“Good choice,” JARVIS replied and Steve grinned at the indirect answer of confirmation. 

The Tower had an open and flashy helipad that served as base for the Avenjet and the armour’s landing. It was what the world saw as the roof of the Tower, and the assessment wasn’t wrong, really. But the quieter and more secluded part, a private area where Natasha grew her terrace garden of jasmine and false goat’s beard, mingled with herbs. It was where Clint sat during his silent periods right after their shift into the Tower, during the old days when he had still been dealing with knowing and digesting the truth. It was where Thor went when he wanted a moment of quiet and a chance to talk to Heimdall without JARVIS watching. Bruce preferred his lab but he had a lounge chair up there, meant for days when he would draw into a voluntary shell. Steve lingered there on nights and days when missing an unknown past was deep in his bones.

Tony usually never had a specific pattern of what he did there or why he went there. The last time Steve had chanced upon him on the roof was when Tony had relapsed and he was on the verge of throwing bottles off the roof. 

Today it wasn’t that. 

Steve entered the private roof and let his eyes roam over Natasha’s garden for a minute before he walked further, trying to find Tony. It wasn’t difficult in the end, his eyes landing on Tony’s form as the man stood facing towards the setting sun.

“You here for an intervention, Cap?” Tony asked without turning around and Steve noted the glass of seltzer water that lay beside Tony’s hand on the flat railing. 

“Would be a bit hypocritical of me, don’t you think?” he asked casually and Tony’s shoulders rose in a shrug. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time” he commented and Steve felt the sting of that but then Tony sighed, “I’m really not the best company right now, Steve.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Steve replied with a teasing tone and Tony finally turned just a bit, enough to shoot Steve a dry look. He looked calm, Steve observed. A bit too calm. 

“I brought bagels,” he said and moved smoothly, walking towards Tony to settle near him, not touching shoulders but not far apart either, “Even got you an extra sesame seed one so you won’t steal mine.”

“Your blasphemy knows no bounds,” Tony commented but didn’t pick up a bagel, instead staring out at the open sky, “I’m sorry, you know?”

“I know,” Steve said quietly, not saying anything extra because it didn’t matter that Tony didn’t owe  _ him _ any apology or anyone for that matter. The person Tony had hurt, was hurting, the most was himself and Steve wished fiercely that he would accept his own apologies someday. But it didn’t matter because sometimes it was necessary to get the words out, no matter to whom.

And Steve had grown to be the one Tony could pick to be that, something Steve guarded closely. 

“I did try”

“I know,” Steve repeated because he  _ did _ know that. He had seen Tony struggle to bring himself up to agree, fight himself to drag his feet to the therapist’s office every appointment. He had seen the anger and exhaustion and nervousness build. It had even been Tony’s idea, an impromptu decision to finally seek therapy for the issues that hounded every step of his. 

To see him back out, dejected and disturbed, not at ease anymore with the setting was disheartening but Steve  _ knew _ how much Tony wanted this to work. 

It didn’t always work though, and Steve had read about it, about trying again with others to find someone more suitable. Knowing Tony and his trust trouble though, it was a long shot for now. 

Not that Steve could comment on it objectively, with his own lack of therapy to show for. 

“They asked me about you and I cracked,” Tony said and Steve froze but the genius was continuing, “Well, you and Howard.”

“If they were pushing your boundaries then -”

“It wasn’t -,” Tony made a frustrated noise but then shrugged, “They asked if I blamed you for my issues with Howard and I just - froze.”

It was a thin ice situation when it came to that topic for them. They approached it a couple of times, when Steve spoke about Bucky or Tony spoke about Pepper. It was an inevitable string of connection and it was tangled in knots. 

“Blaming someone and hating someone isn’t the same always,” he said and Tony snorted, glancing at Steve.

“Is this your way of asking me if I blame you or hate you?” he asked and Steve made a face but kept silent. Tony breathed out and rolled his eyes before looking forwards again. “I’ve done both and neither helped, so really.”

It wasn’t an answer but it was what Steve got and he bit into his bagel. 

“I think I did too,” Steve said after a while and Tony shot him a questioning glance, “both, I mean. Blame and hate.”

If it was anyone else or a time before that, Steve would have gotten a hurt look and a flinch. Tony simply smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, I know,” he said and he  _ did _ . Tony had gotten it sooner than Steve that it would be tough for Steve to distinguish between Howard and Tony for a while. It hadn’t been difficult per se but the momentary bitterness had come at times. Sometimes when Tony laughed with a particular throw of his head, or made a particularly snarky observation, when he clapped Steve’s shoulder on some days, and the times when he would address the press. There had been moments when the nostalgia hit so hard that Steve had been left reeling and he had wondered if it would have been easier if Tony hadn’t kept reminding him of those things. It was selfish and something that always left him guilty, but it had been there and Steve knew that it had been evident to Tony. 

But then there would be moments when Steve would raise his hand and Tony would know what the gesture meant. When Tony would buy tubs of butter pecan and claim that everybody loved it even though Steve knew he was the only one who really did. When Steve would sketch in the workshop and Tony would stick the sketches onto his board without much teasing. When Tony would argue and smile and throw an arm over his shoulder and fight and help; when he would be just Tony and  _ Tony _ Stark, Steve would always remember that he had that now. It was good and he liked having Tony there. 

He didn’t think he would mix him for Howard anymore. 

“I can’t change who Howard knew,” Steve said lowly, eyes on Tony’s hand, “And I am glad that he remembered me, Tony. I wish he had lived better and been - who you deserved. I do, really. But I am also glad that I had a friend in him and Peggy and all the people I did.”

Tony didn’t speak and Steve took a breath before he continued.

“I do wish though that he had told you how I had failed,” he said and looked at Tony when the genius turned to look at him, “How I needed Bucky to watch my back when I jumped into the fray of Hydra soldiers. Or how I was an ass to Peggy and almost got shot for it.”

“That stuff needs to be in the exhibit,” Tony said with an excuse of a grin and Steve huffed but nodded.

“I don’t know if I can regret what I did to become who I am,” he said slowly and consciously kept his hands from clenching, “And one of those things was to trust Howard Stark to do his job and have my back. But the Howard I knew died when I crashed that plane, because so did a part of me.”

“Steve -”

“No, it’s okay, it’s fine,” Steve waved off the soft rebuke, “I know the legends he built and carried about me, and Tony, even if the stories were true they weren’t complete. They didn’t have the bits where I screwed up or needed help. The parts where I would snap at my best friend and then swallow tears at night because I was just tired. The parts where I felt nauseous about the soldiers who were just as good men as our own but were considered our enemy. The parts where I faltered and stumbled, those weren’t in those legends but they happened. They happened and I am a better person for those and for the people who didn’t stop trusting me even after them.”

Some days Steve would remember the fire in Peggy’s eyes when she was holding her own against Steve in an argument about battle tactics, and that image would fade into the reality of Tony facing him with a similar but not same fire. It was different, it was new, but Tony still had those flashing eyes and devil-may-care disregard for rules that Peggy once did. Steve would dream of Peggy and end up waking to a fading dream of Tony. It was like a new chapter following a passed one and Steve was getting less nervous about it with every passing time. 

“I guess what I’m saying is that I am sorry for what you carried because of a legend,” Steve took a shaky breath and placed his hand over Tony’s, “but I can only hope that you know that there were stories he didn’t tell you, and those were far more real than the ones he did.”

Tony didn’t reply for a couple of minutes before he turned his hand under Steve’s and clasped it in a hold, dropping a quick squeeze.

“I grew up with your ghost,” he said bluntly and Steve would have flinched but then Tony looked at him, “but I live with  _ you _ . It doesn’t change the past or my issues with my father but it does change who you are to me.”

Steve was itching to push and ask more of that, to find a clearer picture of what Tony was hinting at.

He breathed out and held Tony’s hand instead. 

Some things were worth the wait and Steve had good practice of waiting. 

**_Tony_ **

The leaves were covered in snow and the immediate future was on fire when Tony looked at Steve across the battlefield with the realization that he loved him.

“Iron Man, on your six,” Thor warned and Tony ducked as he cut through the barrage of energy beams the Hydra soldiers were shooting their way. 

“Shit,” he cursed when his repulsor beams failed to budge the shield around the fortress and he heard Steve respond immediately.

“Language!”

It was a momentary thing and Steve sounded sheepish after it even as he went over options for everyone to keep the soldiers off them, but Tony had caught it and he huffed out a laugh. It had been a spill-over from the constant school videos Steve had been shooting for and Tony  _ knew _ that but it had just been so -  _ Steve _ , so earnest even in the slip of tongue that Tony had found it easy to say it in his head.

_ God I love you _

It made him falter and he covered it up by offhandedly teasing Steve before entering the fortress, but it had been clear in his head. Just as clear as it had been the night he had seen Pepper on the roof of a party, feeling like something he had kept hidden had broken free. 

He loved Steve. It was as simple as that.

It was terrifying as more when Tony saw the vision of Steve dying and choking on his blood as he blamed Tony for not doing enough. His hand skittered over Steve’s pulse and his heart skipped beats as he fought to hold Steve or back away flinching. It was the nightmare he had never entertained because he knew that it would break him and it was - it was breaking him apart, shard by shard. 

He cupped a hand over Steve’s jaw and tried to beg him to stay when the vision broke suddenly and Tony was jarred into the present by a yell followed by a grunt. 

Tony blinked rapidly and got to his feet, stumbling and shaking, to see Steve fighting a white haired man and his eyes slid down to see a dark haired girl crouched on the floor, clutching at her middle. Who was - what had -

“Sentry mode off,” he rasped and extended his arm to let the suit fold over him smoothly, gasping as the faceplate came down, “J, what -”

“Sir, the enhanced subject seems to possess mind altering powers, or rather mind-manipulating powers,” the AI said grimly and it came crashing on Tony. He had tried to take the Sceptre when he had begun seeing the Chitauri. His worst nightmares had come alive in front of his eyes and he had been unable to know reality from them. 

They had been - it wasn’t real.

“Sir, I suggest sonic measures to defend,” JARVIS said and Tony caught the girl rising up just in time. He raised his gauntlet and let out a sonic beam of vibration strong enough to make her give up on trying again. 

The other enhanced was difficult but the sonic beam had affected him too and Steve caught on soon enough. 

Tony didn’t say a word as they took them to be taken to the Tower for better analysis, and Steve didn’t ask a word except for taking the Sceptre from hm quietly.

“That was intense,” Steve said when he walked into the workshop, hours after they had landed in the Tower, and Tony didn’t turn around, staring at the Sceptre instead.

“How are the Trouble Twins?” he asked and heard Steve come closer.

“Hill and Natasha have them handled,” he said and hesitated before continuing, “They were volunteers for Hydra’s experiments after Sokovia’s protests seemed to get no response from anyone. I don’t think they knew that it was Hydra. Things were still murky with SHIELD back then.”

Tony didn’t reply. He knew well enough why the twins  _ really _ volunteered.

“You here to tell me it wasn’t my fault that the bomb killed their parents?” he asked with fake casualness and heard a bitten off sigh before Steve moved forward, partly in Tony’s line of vision.

“I’ve learnt to pick times for obvious statements,” he replied before continuing in a quieter tone, “I actually wanted to know if you were okay. Wanda threw you in for a powerful loop by the looks of it.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to deny it, to scoff and deflect. To say the same old words of being fine. To lie. 

He breathed out and turned to look at Steve.

“I saw you die,” he said and Steve’s expression froze, “You were choking on your own blood and dying and then you blamed me for not doing more to save you.”

Steve’s face clouded with anger for a minute before it drained and a deep sadness filled it instead.

“It wasn’t real,” he said quietly but Tony shook his head.

“It might be, it very well could be,” he countered and spoke over Steve when he looked to protest, “I’ve been thinking about some measures for the future. A shield, on a larger scale, for the world.”

“You can’t stop a war before it starts, Tony,” Steve reminded him and Tony laughed bitterly.

“It’s a bad thing that I’m a futurist then, isn’t it? Because that’s what I do,” he said and Steve opened his mouth but then shut it, visibly reining himself.

“We’ll discuss it later,” he said and peered closer, “Are you okay?”

“What do you think?” Tony asked and Steve eyed him for a minute before stepping closer.

“I think that there are other things I would rather tell you than something that isn’t  _ true _ and isn’t something I will ever believe,” he said and took a breath before holding one of Tony’s hands awkwardly, “Like how I like you.”

“Steve -”

“And how I respect who you are and everything you think.”

“ _ Steve _ -”

“And that you are one of the best parts of this new world for me,” Steve finished with a slight smile.

“I think I love you,” Tony said bluntly and Steve stilled, eyes wide but Tony grinned shakily, “Actually, I’m  _ sure  _ that I love you and it is  _ terrifying _ but also something I’ve been waiting to feel for a while maybe.”

Steve stared blankly at him and Tony shrugged hesitantly.

“It’s really okay if you don’t feel the same, no compulsions or anything,” he said quickly, “but I thought you should know, you know, so that if you ever catch feelings or almost feelings then maybe we could do something other than talk about my dad and your Peggy or do that too but probably with fewer clothes and maybe - okay that sounded bad but you know,  _ intimacy _ or something and - wow I am clearly not explaining this right but -”

“Okay,” Steve said and Tony’s teeth clicked as he stopped talking. Steve smiled tremulously and leaned in till his forehead touched Tony’s and breathed out. “Okay.”

“Does this mean you have almost feelings for me?” Tony clarified and Steve huffed a wet chuckle.

“Yes, Tony,” he answered and grinned at the man who helped write a future Steve didn’t know was possible, “I do.”

Tony grinned back and Steve was certain that this was a beginning they both deserved.

It was only better when the next morning Tony woke him up with a coffee with milk and a smile that belonged with them.

  
  



End file.
